Rashid Abdi, For Addis Standard Two mass protest movements have, in quick succession, forced regime changes in Sudan and Ethiopia, two of the Horn of Africa’s quintessential “hard” states. A deep-seated disillusion with the security and developmental states drives the new “revolutionary” mood. What is less clear is where all the ferment and the popular…

The Ministry of Finance (MoF) approved the imports of agricultural mechanization, irrigation and animal feed technologies, and equipment to be tax-free. The Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) in close collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) initiated the tax reform policy by conducting a cost-benefit analysis and identified and listed the equipment to be imported…

The emperors made us speak one language to bring us together. It failed, but it also succeeded. This is the fifth article in the seven-part series Living In Translation about language and identity. They are guest edited by Nanjala Nyabola and will be published across this week. See all the articles published so far here. Like most African…

For the last three months, Tortoises have been sold for 60,000 birr to 400,000 birr at local markets. Rumors have spread, falsely claiming that their shells consist of mercury and that this could block phone and Internet networks. What are commonly named leopard tortoises are being sold in Debre Birhan, Gonder, Addis Ababa, Awash and…

By Dawit Woldegiorgis, Visiting Scholar at Boston University, African Studies Center ‘Absolutely Oversold’***********************As instability and violence spreads across much of Ethiopia, with most recent incidents getting close to the capital in Northern Showa, it is becoming a matter of grave concern to Ethiopians and regional governments, whether there will be a full-fledged civil war in Ethiopia….

By Major Dawit Woldegiorgis PM Ably seems to have taken a calculated decision to play the ethnic card to perhaps appease the radicals within his party. For certain, his ethnic base is fired up and their expectations are high. His colleague Jawar Mohamed, another fiery demagogue who preaches ethnic and religious extremism has been invited…

Hayalnesh Gezahegn Addis Abeba, April 01/2019 – The 10th organizational conference of the Somali People’s Democratic Party (SPDP) underway in Jigjiga city, the capital of Somali regional state. The conference began with preliminary panel discussion on various topics on Sunday March 31 and is expected to last until Wednesday April 03/2019. This is SPDP’s first major…

Kjetil Tronvoll (@KjetilTronvoll), For Addis Standard The Ethiopian government, and its regional states’ authorities, are increasingly facing challenges to enforce order and security control over the territory of the federation. Several areas are allegedly not administratively ‘connected’ to the center, but run by local groupings who have either kicked out or breached with the party…

Mengistu’s Oromo father, Haile Mariam Wolde Ayana, was born in Furii, the then 8 km west of Addis Ababa (now in Addis Ababa due to the city’s growth). He was in the service of the Shewan landowner Afenegus Eshete Geda, who had encountered him while he was on a hunting expedition in the administrative district of Gimira and Maji, then under the…

Zecharias Zelalem To say that Abby Abera has been mentally drained over the course of the past two and a half months would be an understatement. She has spent the lion’s share of the time comforting relatives both at home in Ethiopia and abroad, as well as trying to read up on the Chinese judicial…